2022
THE QUESTION
The Romanian Football Association has asked Hypercube to investigate how the Romanian cup competition could be made more interesting for clubs and fans. The association wanted the top clubs to take the cup tournament more seriously and for the tournament to have a higher match volume. This was subject to the condition that the playing calendar would not lead to player congestion. There was also a desire to limit the travel time for the smaller clubs.
HYPERCUBE’S SOLUTION
Hypercube has proposed a new system that allows more high-level matches to be played, while still using a calendar with the same match dates.
The tournament starts ‘in the traditional way’ with several knock-out rounds between amateur clubs and lower-ranked clubs. In the first rounds, teams meet within their own regions. This is followed by a group phase in which the eight best clubs of the highest level enter. Four groups of six teams are formed.
Here, every team plays a total of three matches. This is decided in the following way: based on playing strength, all clubs are divided into three pots: A, B and C. Every group features two teams from each pot. Every team then plays one match against a team from each pot, independent of the teams own pot seed. The two best-performing clubs from each group will advance to the quarter-finals, followed by the semi-finals and final.
The advantage of this system is that every club plays at least three matches in the group stage, where before a club would have been eliminated immediately after a lost knockout match. In addition, the strongest teams also play against each other in the group stage, which means that more competitive matches are on the schedule.
RESULT
The idea has been received with great enthusiasm by the clubs of both the lower and the higher levels. The new format has been adopted and was implemented in the 2022/23 season.
The value of the new format was proven directly. The total TV-viewership increased from on average 6.6 mln to 9.9 mln in the first and 11.6 mln viewers in the second season. In addition, the more interesting tournament has brought in a new sponsor and the returns have increased by as much as 50%.
Following the success in Romania, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) approached Hypercube to explore the possibility of implementing a similar cup format in Türkiye. After conducting a thorough analysis and sharing the findings with stakeholders, the response from the Turkish football community was very positive. As a result, the same format has been adopted for the Turkish cup competition, and it has been in use since the start of the 2024/25 season.
